New Research Source: Victims' phone calls and transcripts

[HamdenRice]

Believe it or not, almost 5 years after the events of 9/11, the City of New York is only now finally releasing recordings and edited transcripts of 911 calls made on 9/11 by victims of the attacks. Previously the city refused to release these important recordings because, they alleged, the recordings and transcripts might upset victims families.

The transcripts and recordings are being made available under a court order as a result of a lawsuit by the New York Times and nine families of victims.

Bizarrely, the heavily edited transcripts will not include the victims' sides of the conversations, but only the operators, unless the families of the victims consent to the release of the victims' words.

The families will be entitled to a CD containing the full unedited calls if they want them, but if the city's letters to families are any indication, only 24 families have been contacted about the imminent release of the recordings, suggesting that the city has only identified 24 victims from the recordings. It also isn't clear whether the families will receive only the recording of their own family member or of the entire archive.

Already, however, the recordings promise to provide important new data. The news program of the local NBC affiliate in New York this morning played a recorded call -- presumably released by family members -- in which a caller claims that a bomb has gone off in the World Trade Center.

http://www.villagevoice.com/blogs/powerplays/archives/002537.php

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=1770316